Quarrel of the Moderns and the Ancients " Those beauties of the French poesy are such as will raise perfection higher where it is, but are not sufficient to give it where it is not: they are indeed the beauties of a statue but not of a man" (Poesy Abridged). Dryden wrote this essay as a dramatic dialogue with four characters representing four critical positions. The four critical positions are ancients verses moderns, unities, French verses English drama, separation of tragedy and comedy verses ...

ILLINOIS BUS RIDE A number of ideas, suggestions, and points can be extracted from "Illinois Bus Ride", a passage from Aldo Leopold's collection of essays entitled A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. However, there must be one main thesis that the author is attempting to get through to his audience. Leopold argues that we Americans have manipulated the landscape and ecosystem of the prairie so that it seems to be nothing more that a tool at our disposal. All aspects of what was on...

Essay About Criticism of Shakespeare's Plays When attempting to read criticism of Shakespeare plays one idea is clear: if the review was written more than five or ten years ago the essay is likely to be exclusive when it comes to the women in Shakespeare. Little attention had been given to the women of Shakespeare prior to the seventies feminist movement. The women in King Lear deserve attention just as women in every Shakespearean play do. A common idea among critics is that the women perpetuat...

1. What is an essay? An organised collection of YOUR IDEAS about literary texts nicely written and professionally presented. In other words, the essay must be well structured (ie organised) and presented in a way that the reader finds easy to follow and clear: it must look tidy and not present any obstacles to the reader. It must have a clear readable interesting style. But, above all, it must consist of your ideas about literary texts. This is the centre of it: this, and this only, gets the mar...

Critical View Essay As Mr. Darrow explains in this essay an agnostic is simply one who doubts, one who questions things and possesses a quality of skepticism. Darrow explains that the fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. He says "The fear of god is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom". Mr. Darrow argues the one cannot believe in a force excepting a force that pervades matter and is not an individual entity...

John Locke's, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), was first criticized by the philosopher and theologian, John Norris of Bemerton, in his 'Cursory Reflections upon a Book Call'd, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,' and appended to his Christian Blessedness or Discourses upon the Beatitudes (1690). Norris's criticisms of Locke prompted three replies, which were only posthumously published. Locke has been viewed, historically, as the winner of this debate; however, new evidence h...

Summary and Analysis to New Historicism in The Awakening The term New Historicism is not a well stated expression due to the word new. What is new today may be old tomorrow. New historicism is actually old, and the best adjective to describe it is historical. New historic critics are less fact-oriented than critics used to be because they wonder whether the truth about what actually happened can ever be proved. Therefore, they are unlikely to suggest that a literary text has a single or easily i...

Kieran Quinlan RANSOM, John Crowe (30 Apr. l 888-3 July 1974), poet and critic, was born in Pulaski, Tennessee, the son of John James Ransom, a Methodist minister, and Ella Crowe. Raised in a strongly religious though also very open-minded household, the precocious Ransom entered Vanderbilt University in Nashville at age fifteen. Following graduation in 1909 and a stint as a high school teacher, he went on to study classics as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford from 1910 to 1913. Ransom was appointed to...

Wilhelm Emrich has presented an unimaginative and misleading critical essay of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Emrich's failure to make any daring insights provides much protection against any real opposition, but also serves to evince his occasional blunders all the more. The apparent focus of Emrich's essay is the beetle. Emrichcomments on various scenes involving Gregor the bug, but never sticks his neck out or attempts to express any views that may spark any controversy. However, the essay ...

coming soon. I will place the essay on line tomorrow. It is about the Impact of Augustus in Greece. The essay talks about the imperial cult, the genius of Augusts and what he did for religious, political, and economic success in ancient rome. Augustus did a great job as a leader because he desired to have a back to basics mentality and get the kingdom up to par with what good values and morals should be. I touch on the base of what Augustus did as a follower of Julius Ceasar, and what he did to ...

John Donne wrote the essay, Meditation XVII, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. This piece was written three hundred and seventy-eight years ago in 1678. John Donne wrote this essay at a time when he was very ill. Due to this, the main topic of his essay is that of death and of ones own mortality. In the beginning he lets us know that he is sick when saying: and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll f...